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Digital Asset Management Round-Up, December 2015

Digital Clarity Group’s DAM round-up condenses and consolidates some of the digital asset management industry’s most topical news and happenings from the past couple of months.  This edition’s round-up covers SAP hybris’ latest DAM integration with CELUM, as well as Canto and inMotionNow partnering up to bring much needed workflow to the process of digital asset management. And seeing that it is the end of the year, I’ve included a few DAM predictions for 2016.


SAP hybris integrates with another DAM solution

SAP CELUMMarketers, product teams, and retailers understand the impact and contribution digital media plays in providing the desired customer experience, and the need for the continuum of that experience beyond the initial product pages. Connecting their commerce and digital asset management tools enables marketers to immerse their customers in the brand experience from first contact through to delivery of the product or service. The ability to engage customers in a comprehensive, end-to-end brand experience requires that the implicated systems be integrated, including digital asset management systems and commerce platforms.

SAP hybris clearly sees a future in bringing together these two emerging critical components for today’s marketer as it recently announced its integration with CELUM DAM. This is the ERP’s second DAM integration in a matter of months – having announced it’s pairing with OpenText’s Media Management (OTMM) solution earlier this fall.  According to CELUM CEO Michael Kraeftner, “The new integration allows central management of the entire product data and supports our shared clients in their overall communication strategy through all their sales channels.” With this partnership marketers will have the flexibility to work with (edit, maintain meta data, etc.) their digital assets residing in CELUM from within the SAP hybris user interface; streamlining and adding efficiency to their publication process.


Canto and inMotionNow enables marketers creativity

Canto InMotionWorkflow within content management systems has been mainstay for many years now. Newer marketers’ tools such as digital asset management systems, have been slower to make this functionality a core part of its offering, making the process from ideation through to final digital asset product unnecessarily cumbersome and disjointed.

Canto, a provider of digital asset management (DAM) solutions, recently announced it has integrated inMotionNow’s creative work management solution, inMotion, into its Cumulus enterprise DAM software to help drive improved visibility, productivity, and efficiency for enterprise customers. To Canto’s CEO, Jack McGannon’s point, “DAM was once a place for ‘finished assets’ to live, but today’s fast-paced digital landscape is changing that. Digital teams need collaborative, integrated workflows across many simultaneous creative and marketing projects.” This partnership enables online proofing and task management, as well as tracking approvals and provides built in audit trails which will be of particular interest for those organizations with regulatory and compliance needs.

Marketers, regardless of their organization’s size, are looking for digital asset management solutions that go beyond the basics of storing and cataloguing content. With todays diversified workforce blending in-house resources with external, contracted talent, DAM solutions need to be flexible and accessible; able to support the creative and content process, for both digital and analogue, from start to finished asset. Providing marketers and their contributing teams (agencies, sales, R&D, creative, etc.) a reliable, efficient, and real-time environment to manage digital assets from first concept to archiving will enable them to be more responsive to the increasing demands of their digital consumer.

DAM Predictions for 2016

#1 – More companies will add digital asset management to their marketing technology mix.

Content remains king, so content management systems (CMS) aren’t going anywhere, but they do need support. And as the digital and marketing technology landscape is extends and becomes more complicated, the definition of content expands. This broader understanding, and acceptance, of what constitutes a digital asset could be behind the recent, and forecasted, growth of the Digital Asset Management (DAM) market, which according to reportsandreports.com, is projected to grow at 21% CAGR until 2019. I predict that 2016 will find many companies assessing their marketecture landscape and planning for the addition of a DAM solution.

#2 – DAM vendors will broaden their integration capabilities.

Many DAMs integrate fairly easily with a CMS. What marketers need now is more extensive access to their digital assets from different components of their marketing toolset. They are looking (or will be) to extend DAM access and functionality to their other core systems such as ecommerce (which we are seeing more of now), marketing automation platforms (MAP), and product information management (PIM) systems. My prediction is that DAM vendors will focus on making their tools easier to use across the marketing landscape. And a bonus recommendation is that they should do this, rather than loading up with new (and unnecessary) features and functions that may already exist in another part of the technology solution set.

#3 – More complementary technologies will offer DAM capabilities.

This is the flip side to prediction #2. Many CMS vendors already have DAM-lite capabilities as part of their laundry list of content related capabilities – this trend will continue and broaden. My prediction is that just as CMSs will offer more robust DAM capabilities, other platforms and solutions – PIM, MAP, CEM – will start to offer an asset management toolset.

#4 – DAM vendors will step back and remember there are other users of their solution.

DAM vendors seem to be very focused on building their solution to meet the needs of marketers. That is a good thing, but not at the risk of forsaking other non-marketers who need a DAM system just as much. My prediction is that DAM vendors will start to reconnect with their higher ed, research, manufacturing, and media audiences, which, in the end, will ultimately make their product better for all users.

#5 Analytics will continue to be essential to effective digital asset management.

Understanding where assets are being used, consumed, and referenced is necessary context for understanding and tracking asset performance. Having ready access to this data enables digital asset managers, marketers, and product teams to create and deliver relevant content to their consumers via the best channel. My prediction is that more and more DAM users will want/demand better, more comprehensive analytics capabilities for tracking and monitoring their digital assets.

Other industry and related news

Catch up with the key news from around the related industries with Digital Clarity Group’s CMS, e-commerce, and service provider round-ups. All can be found in the Blog section of our website.


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